Second Cluster War
The Second Cluster War is the fourth most destructive intergalactic conflict to ever occur in The Cluster and the largest war ever fought by the Coalition of Intelligent Organisms. It lasted over two thousand years and pushed the military technology of all races involved to their absolute limits. Background The Second Cluster War was mostly incited by the Coalition, brought on by extragalactic exploration that was made possible only in the late 101st century with the development of the first fully-functional Fissure Drives. These devices made exploration into the Andromeda and Triangulum galaxies possible. For a few centuries or so, the Coalition explored these galaxies freely. They focused their efforts mostly in the Andromeda galaxy, as reports of unexpected disappearances in the Triangulum galaxy quickly barred most people from visiting it regularly. Andromeda held new prospects for the Coalition, and the Department of Galactic Sciences was quick to analyze anything that they discovered. It was not long before the Coalition found ancient Aanom Vaults, each containing hordes of slumbering Aanom soldiers and specially-built warmachines that the Kaeolians had provided them years ago. In an attempt to collect and reverse-engineer the technology for themselves, the Coalition accidentally awakened the Aanom and triggered their biological programming for war. The Aanom quickly retaliated and drove the Coalition researchers away, frightening the entire Coalition public as well. It wasn't long before the Bedlam Society heard of the incident. The Society knew that the Aanom were created by the Kaeolian Empire to be the ultimate weapon of war, and that they would stop at nothing to obliterate the Coalition and all of its inhabitants. Since the Aanom couldn't engage in any sort of diplomacy, the Society motivated the Founder Council to unofficially declare war against them and mobilize the entire Coalition military against the Aanom. The Second Cluster War had officially begun. Unbeknownst to both the Coalition and recently reawakened Aanom Legion, however, a third party was also preparing to enter the conflict only a century or so after it started. The Ghuldashi Exiles, led by the malevolent Lubtio Ryi Poq, launched early attacks on the Coalition from their hiding places inside of the Triangulum galaxy. Having long ago vowed to obliterate the Coalition for exterminating her species, the Kaebrun, Ryi assumed total control of the Ghuldashi forces and attacked the Coalition viciously. Since, like the Aanom, most Ghuldashi attacks were focused towards the Milky Way Galaxy, Aanom and Ghuldashi forces frequently fought each other, as well, since the mostly brainless Aanom forces couldn't recognize anything except their own kind as allies. The Ghuldashi quickly became fully embroiled in the war, turning the Second Cluster War into a three-way battle between the Ghuldashi, Aanom and Coalition. Progression Early Conflict: Coalition On The Defensive (11000-11300 C.E.) In stark contrast to the First Cluster War, the Second Cluster War mostly remained in space, rarely involving planetary invasions. The few planetary invasions that did occur were focused during the early years of the war against the Coalition, who were the only empire involved in the war that possessed planetary colonies. The outer colonies the Coalition had worked so hard to rebuild following the Galactic Revolution were frequent targets of Ghuldashi and Aanom invasion fleets, and unfortunately, many of them were completely destroyed in the fighting, as the Coalition was reluctant to pull their defense fleets away from the Core Zones and leave their centers of power unprotected. Despite being the original instigators of the war, the Coalition was forced to remain defensive during the early stages of the war, as their military was still very unprepared and weakened after the series of conflicts during the Revolution. They couldn't fight both the Ghuldashi and Aanom simultaneously with the forces they immediately had on hand, and fell back to their Dyson Spheres to build up their forces until they were strong enough to launch a counterattack. Both the Ghuldashi and Aanom had a very good chance to wipe out the Coalition and end the war early, but fighting between them slowed invasion progress for both and bought the Coalition extra time for preparation. The turning point of the war was when the Coalition began to field hypercruisers to drive Ghuldashi and Aanom forces out of the MWG, allowing them to push the offensive. Though still prototypes, the first few hypercruisers fielded by the Coalition proved to be very effective, possessing enough firepower to destroy entire armadas. Though only 4 hypercruisers were ever deployed during the war, they were enough to push the Ghuldashi and Aanom away from Coalition territory and equalize the state of the war.